They are ready to enter the amateur market, but at only one level, the beginners just converting from P&S who want DSLRs that are like thier P&S. Well, they have been in the DSLR business long enough to have plenty of beginners who are ready for the jump up to the a7xx level from the beginner level and just look like totally lost at knowing that.

Agree completely. Having made the decision to upgrade from the entry level A200 I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for a camera to upgrade to. The A700 isn't it because it doesn't have live view, something which I happen to want. It is also outdated tech. Now I realise that does not mean it suddenly becomes a bad camera but when committing to that amount of money I'd rather have something which isn't already out of date so between that and the lack of LV the A700 isn't the answer.

I've been waiting a long time now and so far I've seen the original A200 dumbed down to a bulky P&S in the form of the A230, a "Tesco Value" version of the A900 in the 850 and now a genuine next gen version of the original A200 in the A500. But the market segment I actually care about still hasn't been touched even though it has been known for some time that the A700 is now out of production.

Yes I've read Ken's rant about all production runs stopping before the replacement comes out but, that notwithstanding, the A700 was reported late last year or earlier this year to be getting stopped with no direct replacement. This came from a Sony rep. He may be right, he may not be, but what we do know is that it has now been stopped so he was at least right on that. And if the A700 is to be replaced it seems unlikely that we'll see anything before well into next year. That would mean that production of the A700 has ceased a long, long time before it has on other models that have been replaced. I have to say that with all this in mind I do find it entirely plausible that the guy was right and there is no A700 replacement in the wings. That doesn't mean they won't do another higher end APS-C camera in any form, it just means no update of the A700 - and whatever is coming won't be here any time soon.

For one I'm done waiting. Sony's product range is all beginner or all pro both in lenses and bodies. The middle is all but absent. The lenses are good, even market leading in some cases but they are all, almost without exception, over priced. The bodies are a mixed bag in this respect - some represent good value others are a complete con. I've read too many stories about companies that won't deal with Sony or instances where Sony won't deal with retailers etc to believe that they are ever likely to really make an impact on the market until they change their attitude and get a proper handle on how important their brand really is. This isn't video, and currently their brand doesn't carry much weight, but they don't seem to understand that. If they did they'd be making more of an effort to get smaller more specialist retailers on board and to ensure their prices are in line with other brands. If I want to buy Sony stuff I mostly have to order it from a handful of websites - if I shot Canikon I could walk into almost any photography shop and pretty much pick up whatever I wanted.

Probably the single biggest reason I still have Sony stuff at all is because I am a bit of a rebel and I don't want to be a Canikon sheep and just get one because everyone else has one, or because some camera club snob reckons you can only be a real photographer if you have Canikon equipment. But there's only so long I can keep convincing myself of that argument when the company themselves don't provide what I am looking for and the others do (and I already have it).